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Why This Atheist Still Needs His Former Pastor

He was young—so much so that nearly everyone called him “Pastor
Doogie”—gracious, eloquent and kind, with a biting sense of humor that
showed he didn’t take anything too seriously (besides the love of God).
After meeting and working with him on a Teens Encounter Christ retreat, I
loved Pastor Matthew so much that my friend and I decided to become
members at his church.

For our first act as official church members, we participated in a "30 Hour Famine,”
raising money to give food to those in need and fasting for 30 hours so
that we might intimately know the experience of hunger. The event also
served as a church retreat where they screened The Passion of the Christ;
to the shock of my tear-streaked friends, I fell asleep in the middle
of it. That my response to a visual depiction of the crucifixion was to
take a nap may have been a sign of things to come: just a couple of
years later, I stopped believing in God.

Raised in a secular Minnesota household, I converted to a
fundamentalist, nondenominational form of Christianity at 11 years old
following a traumatic change in my family dynamic and after reading
books like Hiroshima, The Diary of Anne Frank and Roots,
which exposed me to some of the world’s most devastating injustices.
The born-again Christian congregation I joined provided both a
supportive community and an ethical framework that promised justice. But
after years of a desperate, dehumanizing struggle to reconcile my
sexual orientation and my conservative religious beliefs, I eventually
made my way into more progressive Christian communities, where I met
Matthew.

Matthew became a pastor, a mentor and a friend; he prayed with me, helped me with my college applications, and consoled me when my first boyfriend and I broke up
after his conservative religious parents discovered our relationship.
Most importantly, Matthew came to symbolize a dedication to serving God
by serving others that I hoped to embody someday; when I was accepted to
a Lutheran college, I told him I wanted to major in religion and
eventually become a pastor like him.

I thought that my negative experiences—all those years of believing
that God was ignoring my pleas to be rid of the burden of being gay, the
years I spent hating myself for who I was—were God’s way of helping me
understand the experience of suffering. Just as the 30 Hour Famine was
intended to help participants empathize with the hungry, I understood
these struggles as preparation for pastoral work in solidarity with the
marginalized and disenfranchised. I wanted to help others, and the
people I knew who helped others the most (like Matthew) were pastors.

What I didn’t fully understand then was that my desire to help others
and be in community existed apart from the theological claims of
Christianity, which never sat as easily with me. After I was encouraged
by my college professors to critically examine the underpinning desires
that initially propelled me into Christianity, I left the church. At
first being an atheist meant rejecting religion and all interpersonal
discussions of it; but, years later, I realized I was missing
opportunities to learn from and with those who saw the world differently
than I did. Deciding to give religion another look, I moved to Chicago
to get a master’s degree and began to work for the Interfaith Youth Core
as an atheist and interfaith activist, hoping to build bridges of
understanding and cooperation between the religious and nonreligious. I
then moved to Massachusetts to expand on this work at the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard as
their inaugural Interfaith and Community Service Fellow, where I now
coordinate the first ever atheist-led interfaith community service
program, Values in Action. It was through this work that I had a
surprising opportunity to build—no, rebuild—one such bridge.

“It’s been a long time, Tiffer,” he said through one of his
characteristically gigantic grins. It had been nearly as long since
anyone outside my family called me that name.

“It sure has, Doogie,” I said, returning his grin, imagining he
hadn’t heard that nickname in a while, either. As an espresso machine
rattled and steamed from across the room, Matthew informed me that he
had recently left a call in parish ministry and was now in Massachusetts
working for an organization called Outreach Inc. – Kids Care,
which organizes meal-packaging events for churches and conferences that
wanted to give back. In addition to coordinating these events, he
donated his Sunday mornings to traveling around New England and
preaching at churches, hoping to inspire them to get involved in the
fight against hunger. I asked if he’d be interested in expanding his
partnerships beyond churches and Christian conferences and working with
an atheist organization on an interfaith program. He didn’t even
hesitate.

It’s funny because, when he first asked me to get coffee, I
hesitated. “What will he think of the work I do now?” I asked myself.
“Will he feel like he failed me as a pastor? Will he want to debate
theology? Will he try to bring me back into the church?”

Such hesitance was unmerited; he sat and listened as I updated him on
my life, smiling and nodding as I described how I’ve come into my own
as an atheist, an interfaith activist and a young man. Now, Matthew and I
have a better and more honest relationship than we ever did in my
youth.

It’s been a more productive one, too: in less than six months, we’ve
mobilized hundreds of people to come together in interfaith coalition
and donate their time and money to package more than 30,000 meals for
food-insecure children in Boston. Most recently we held an event
(planned with Boston University’s Interfaith Council) called HUNGERally,
where more than a hundred student representatives from eight
Boston-area colleges and universities spent a Saturday night learning
about the problem of hunger and pledging to work together across lines
of religious difference to address it.

All of this is the direct result of a partnership between an atheist
and his former pastor. In light of this, I cannot help but wonder what
the world would look like if we were more willing to forge
unconventional alliances. What would happen if we were more radical
about whom we saw as our collaborators? What would happen if we took the
risk of reaching out to the unfamiliar? If atheists and Christians
started seeing one another as necessary partners in making the world a
better place, what might we come to understand about each other? What
might we come to better understand about ourselves? What might we
accomplish together?

Many of the most significant issues that afflict our world—disease,
economic disparity, access to clean water, systemic hunger—don’t discern
our religious differences. They don’t parse people into camps before
they ravage; they don’t care about our designations of “us” and “them,”
“religious” and “secular,” “the right ones” and “the wrong ones.” In
fighting these issues, neither should we. Our work opposing these common
enemies can also transform us into allies in the fights against bigotry
and fundamentalism; they can show us that the divisions between “those
who are like me” and “those who aren’t” are less significant than our
shared humanity.

More than a billion people on the planet don’t have enough food,
including one in six Americans. It will take more than just Christians
or just atheists to solve this problem. My work with Matthew and other
interfaith and hunger activists in Boston is putting a very small dent
in hunger, but it is a start. I am so glad I took Matthew up on his
invitation to catch up.

“Remember how you told me you had a call to ministry?” he asked as I took a sip of black coffee.

I laughed, nearly spitting it out. “I work for an atheist
organization now, so I think it’s safe to say that I was wrong about
that one.”

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“Oh, see,” he said with a smirk, his eyes darting mischievously
between the Bible he had placed on the table and his former parishioner,
“I was going to say that it’s really nice to see you’ve realized your
call.”

I never did become a pastor, but by working with one, I’ve been able
to do the work of helping others all the same. I call it service, he
calls it ministry; though our words are different, our values and our
work are the same. Because we don’t let different words get in the way,
we’ve been able to make that little dent just a little bit bigger.

It felt good to pick my own pastor; it feels even better to pick the
fight against hunger over the religious-secular culture war.

Chris Stedman (@ChrisDStedman) is a prolific writer and public speaker on atheism and interfaith engagement and the author of the forthcoming book Faitheist: How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious (Beacon
Press, November 2012). Last year the Huffington Post named his work one
of the “Top 11 Religion Stories of the Year” and Religion
Dispatches listed him at #5 in the “Top 10 Peacemakers in the
Science-Religion Wars” (as his mom loves to note, three notches above
Jon Stewart).

Top Comments

Chris, I feel your heart and the love you have for those who are hurting...we are a mess aren't we?? Sin has broken so many things and left us all with a sense of depravity, no doubt. I applaud you for doing so much to relieve other's pain. As I think about sin and truth tho, I realize that A)We don't define what sin is; God the Father does, and B) Truth is defined as "lining up with that which most closely resembles the original". God designed men and women and defined their purpose by His decree. I don't hate or condemn those who stray from His original intent, I love all people regardless of their choices and beliefs, but that still doesn't change the fact that we all must come to an understanding of what the Creator's mind and artful hand intended as He created. It is hugely important to show love to the broken and downtrodden, but the real issue is what restores those back to what their original design and purpose was? It seems to be removing sin, reconstructing the heart, soul and mind back to what they were created for. In the principle of give a man a fish vs. teach him to fish we find true health, growth and restoration. In my life i could have never learned to fish without all of my brokenness being healed and my new "creation" through the Holy Spirit!! We are all sinners and I have been saved from past sins, am being saved in present sins as we repent and will be saved from future sin and death. God's whole purpose in sending Christ was to put light back into a dark people who are easily led astray by our own desires. Chris, being gay is what you desire, not how u were designed. Your very "plumbing" tells you this in the way men and women are physically designed. Common sense dictates that. We can do good things 24/7, but it will never overcome the way all fall short of God's intent. Good deeds don't blot out bad ones. I can murder someone, feel bad and spend the rest of my life doing amazingly good works, but to the mother that lost her child, I can never replace that.... the only hope I then have is forgiveness to make me whole again. Same thing with Father God. I do believe that i would rather die of starvation knowing God than to be haunted by my sin all the days of a "comfortable" life. we all know the conviction of sin that works in our hearts. we can either look in dead in the eye and deal with it, or grow hard and try to overcome it by doing good things to try to appease our conscience. As for me, it's much simpler to admit I fall short, confess my sin and trust that "He who is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness" has me in His hands. That in the end is all that will matter as we stand before the Creator that we all have turned our backs on in willful disobedience....

5 Comments

Hi Chris, it is true that that Christians need to be more effective in helping the disadvantage. But is the call of a Christian to make the world a better place? If we simply focus on social justice issues and forgo the calling of Jesus to go make disciples we neglect our true calling. We also neglect to care for others life in eternity. Christians find their true place when they learn to care for those in need and still be willing to lead them into a lasting relationship Christ.

Chris, I feel your heart and the love you have for those who are hurting...we are a mess aren't we?? Sin has broken so many things and left us all with a sense of depravity, no doubt. I applaud you for doing so much to relieve other's pain. As I think about sin and truth tho, I realize that A)We don't define what sin is; God the Father does, and B) Truth is defined as "lining up with that which most closely resembles the original". God designed men and women and defined their purpose by His decree. I don't hate or condemn those who stray from His original intent, I love all people regardless of their choices and beliefs, but that still doesn't change the fact that we all must come to an understanding of what the Creator's mind and artful hand intended as He created. It is hugely important to show love to the broken and downtrodden, but the real issue is what restores those back to what their original design and purpose was? It seems to be removing sin, reconstructing the heart, soul and mind back to what they were created for. In the principle of give a man a fish vs. teach him to fish we find true health, growth and restoration. In my life i could have never learned to fish without all of my brokenness being healed and my new "creation" through the Holy Spirit!! We are all sinners and I have been saved from past sins, am being saved in present sins as we repent and will be saved from future sin and death. God's whole purpose in sending Christ was to put light back into a dark people who are easily led astray by our own desires. Chris, being gay is what you desire, not how u were designed. Your very "plumbing" tells you this in the way men and women are physically designed. Common sense dictates that. We can do good things 24/7, but it will never overcome the way all fall short of God's intent. Good deeds don't blot out bad ones. I can murder someone, feel bad and spend the rest of my life doing amazingly good works, but to the mother that lost her child, I can never replace that.... the only hope I then have is forgiveness to make me whole again. Same thing with Father God. I do believe that i would rather die of starvation knowing God than to be haunted by my sin all the days of a "comfortable" life. we all know the conviction of sin that works in our hearts. we can either look in dead in the eye and deal with it, or grow hard and try to overcome it by doing good things to try to appease our conscience. As for me, it's much simpler to admit I fall short, confess my sin and trust that "He who is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness" has me in His hands. That in the end is all that will matter as we stand before the Creator that we all have turned our backs on in willful disobedience....

Jesus talked a lot more about life on earth, then about life in heaven. But it's not an either/or dilemma, it's a both/and. We are called to bring heaven to earth by way of caring for those in need, seeking justice and mercy, etc; but you are also right, in that we should never hesitate to share the life-redeeming work of Jesus Christ on the cross, and as he commanded, to make disciples of all nations! Sorry for the run-on sentence. :)